Bricks-and-Mortar Is an eBook Advantage for Barnes & Noble

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Bricks-and-Mortar Is an eBook Advantage for Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble only announced its nook e-book reader last week, and already the company has signed a deal with a potential competitor, Que proReader manufacturer Plastic Logic, to help it make a bigger dent in the Kindle-dominated market.

As part of the deal, Barnes & Noble will sell the business-friendly Que proReader alongside the more leisure-oriented nook in its retail locations around the country starting early next year, supply permitting, as well as on its website. And even if a store runs out of the devices, consumers will still be able to get their hands on one for a quick, salesperson-guided demo.

By partnering with Plastic Logic to sell its Que proReader — and to run the Que eBook store — Barnes & Noble doubles its product line without doing any extra development. And, it makes a play for business-minded users who need to view and edit Microsoft Office documents in addition to reading bookson management, and who need a device that connects to any WiFi hotspot, like the Que proReader.

Still, given Amazon's two-year headstart with the Kindle e-book reader — and with a new, larger-screen DX model coming out for the holidays —Barnes & Noble will need all the help it can get.

This eBook latecomer, founded in 1873, has something Amazon cannot replicate: 1,300 or so physical locations (including college stores) across all 50 states. Ironically, the same high-overhead stores that helped Amazon undercut Barnes & Noble's book prices could give the bricks-and-mortar retailer an advantage at selling e-book readers, for at least three reasons.

First, Barnes & Noble's stores give consumers a place to play with the nook, the Que, and other e-book-reading devices the chain plans to sell, before taking the e-book plunge. This is crucial, because e-books represent a far bigger leap for readers than the one music fans made when they switched from CD to MP3 players that let them use the same headphones. Readers who are reticent to forgo "dead tree" reading material for some new-fangled gizmo might change their minds after seeing the nook and Que proReader in action.

On the other hand, the only way to test a Kindle before you buy is if you can borrow one. And while you can test-drive the Sony e-book reader at Sony Style stores with an expert on-hand, there are only 60 of those nationwide. Some other retailers that sell that device have recently added displays that let customers play with the devices and watch a video about them, but adoption has been relatively slow nonetheless. Perhaps Barnes and Noble, which has lots of foot traffic from readers, will be able to show off advanced features like the ability to read anything in the catalog for free, and will have staff on hand trained in the devices rather than a video that starts playing when you pick one up, could have better luck in that regard.

"The power of seeing and feeling the device and understanding how different it is and what it can do for you is very compelling, so the hands-on opportunity of retail is very important," Plastic Logic spokeswoman Betty Taylor told Wired.com. "There will be dedicated booksellers there to answer consumers' questions."

Her assertion holds water — after all, the strategy of using physical locations to let customers try digital devices before buying them has been working pretty well for Apple so far.

Second, Barnes & Noble's stores will allow nook owners — and Que owners too, we confirmed with Barnes & Noble — to browse books for free using a Wifi connection when they're visiting one of its retail stores. This "read before you buy" feature could reintroduce readers to the habit of frequenting bookstores, as they're lured by this free content. While they're in there, Barnes & Noble can sell them Starbucks coffee, introduce them to AT&T's hotspot services, and sell them stationary, pens, and cases for their eBook readers. At the launch event, the nook already had a surprisingly wide selection of cases, and we expect Plastic Logic and Barnes & Noble to pursue the same strategy with the Que proReader. Being physical, like eBook readers, cases are something that it helps to see in person before you buy one.

Finally, the strategy of selling these digital devices in physical stores will allow Barnes & Nobles to offer and promote readings by authors. It may not make sense for Apple to book U2 to play one if its stores, but one can imagine readers filing into a store to meet an author, take advantage of the on-site promotional downloads Barnes & Noble says it plans to offer, and, of course, buy another cup of coffee.

We also have some news on the format front. The Que proReader will handle eBooks in the PDF, ePub, eReader, and eReader DRM formats; magazines and newspapers in the GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP, and TXT formats; and documents in the Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint formats.

Details (including price) will be announced January 7, but so far we know it has a large, 8.5-inch by 11-inch "shatterproof" screen, AT&T 3G and WiFi connections, and tools for "interacting with and managing the content" — an indication that unlike the Kindle and the nook, the Que proreader's entire screen will be a touch-capacitive control. While affecting battery life adversely, this would make it much more handy for business users to mark up and edit documents.

These are important distinctions, if Barnes & Noble and its new partner are to seize any significant market share from Amazon. But the same overhead-heavy retail stores that gave Amazon an edge in the physical book market in the first place could prove an even bigger advantage for Barnes & Noble and its new partner.